


Perfume

by atria



Series: Ryoma vs. Puberty [1]
Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22413151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atria/pseuds/atria
Summary: A broody moment in the shower after Ryoma’s practice match with Atobe. The one he’s stuck in the changing rooms with is Fuji, but things as ever end up going back to Tezuka.
Relationships: Echizen Ryouma & Fuji Shuusuke, Echizen Ryouma/Tezuka Kunimitsu
Series: Ryoma vs. Puberty [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1170497
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	Perfume

**Author's Note:**

> Pretty tame stuff, but still, pretend no one in this story is 12...

After the practice with Atobe, there were things to pack and rooms to tidy. On the bus back, Fuji said he was sweaty from playing, and Ryuuzaki allowed everyone an extra thirty minutes to shower. But in the end only Ryoma and Fuji seemed to care about hygiene.

Standing under the water, Ryoma felt how good it was not to move his body with any purpose, or to look at anything at all. It was hard to raise his arm above his head for soap. It was hard to stop his mind from going where he didn’t want it to go. 

“Echizen, does it hurt?” 

He turned. Fuji was looking at him with his sharp, pale eyes. “Kinda,” he said.

“Is it your elbow?”

He nodded, more out of awkwardness than anything. It was strange to be looked at while the water was still running over his hair. 

But Fuji only smiled and said not to worry. “I have just the thing to help.”

When they got out of the shower, Fuji bent to Ryoma while he was sitting down, a towel half-pulled over his face. 

“Here, let me put this on the joint.” He worked the screw-cap on a small amber bottle, and Ryoma could tell the instant it came off. A sharp, herbal scent loosened in the air, which was otherwise redolent of feet. 

To Ryoma, it smelled Japanese. One of the things his parents and cousin knew the uses of, but to him were at best a curiosity. It must be why the scent was so familiar and so hard to place.

“What’s that?” he asked, just to have something to say. From here, he could see Fuji’s hair dripping a long, wet line down his neck. Without sleeves, it was clear his shoulders were slight, but his back was as lightly freckled as Tezuka’s arms.

“It’s a cold, a cooling ointment,” Fuji said, using the English word. “Is that how you say it?” He began to dab at Ryoma’s elbow, and the first shock of touch said he was right. It felt kind of like how peppermint tasted.

“Aa. I think I’ve seen it before.” 

“I’m not surprised. People use it a lot here for sports injuries, with soft parts like muscles and tendons there’s not always an obvious problem you can fix.” Fuji touched his index finger to the skin a few more times, where Ryoma could feel the tennis callus. “There, all done.” 

Ryoma lifted his elbow experimentally. It went a little easier this time, but that might just be the effect of the steam. “Thank-you, senpai,” he said anyway, and started to take off his towel. He was dry enough to let his clothes soak up the difference, he decided. 

Fuji stood up and turned around without seeming to duck. “No problem.” It struck Ryoma as weird for Fuji to suddenly develop tact— or rather, suddenly decide to use his tact— after basically foisting some weird medicine on Ryoma while they were both half-naked, maybe weirder than the touching, which had felt impulsive.

In the outer room, they could hear the sounds of someone energetically brushing their teeth.

“Saa, Eiji must be trying his new raspberry toothpaste.” By the time Ryoma turned around, Fuji was fully dressed and touching his eye in the mirror. 

“Contacts,” he said. 

On his way out Ryoma was struck twice; that the episode with the ointment had managed to startle him out of thinking about Tezuka, and by a memory of him. Hadn’t buchou smelled different in the last days before he went to Germany? 

Ryoma touched his thumb to his elbow and yes, there it was, that scent and that whole afternoon and evening in the last game he’d seen Tezuka play. How good and thrilling it was to feel his own strength, to be challenged to win, and how painful it still was to lose right then, the change that had already come.

Had it hurt Tezuka to play? He’d gone right-handed, but that didn’t mean the whole other side of his body couldn’t be throbbing the way Ryoma’s arm throbbed after being bent again and again in to the same shapes by Atobe. It could have been very similar for Tezuka, and he’d already been injured before getting hit again. He’d put medicine on his shoulder in hopes it would work.

Ryoma didn’t really know what Tezuka looked like in pain. Did anybody? Did Fuji?

He got back on the bus and was broody all the way back to Tokyo. He turned down Momo’s offer of free burgers and went straight home to get trashed by his annoying father, wearing himself out into early sleep

The next day he woke up and his elbow was stiff again. It was a hokey alternative medicine remedy. It didn’t help at all. 


End file.
